IT. IS. IPAD. DAY!

Or at least I hope there is one in stock for me to purchase. Not since I purchased my iPhone have I been this excited over spending money on a gadget. I’ve specifically avoided playing with the WiFi version which came out a few weeks ago so I wouldn’t be tempted to purchase one before today’s release of the iPad 3G.

Color Me Confused
I arrived at Variety Playhouse last night at 7:30pm to find the venue set up in the “seating everywhere” configuration (I really wish VP would advertise this prior to the show). Because of my arrival time there was little opportunity to set up for decent photography. As I scanned for seating I also noticed that the crowd was very “different” from those I am accustomed to seeing; they were older, and frankly much fatter, than the hipsters. You would need a Great Big Sea in order to sufficiently wash this crowd. I decided to head to the balcony.

At 8:00pm sharp Corb Lund’s band took the stage and played a thirty-minute set. The crowd sat in near silence as his band performed. I was hoping for more, but the fact that he was opening meant otherwise.

At 9:00pm sharp Great Big Sea took the stage and to my astonishment the audience went nuts. Within the first shanty the crowd was standing, signing, clapping. WTF? This behavior continued for each of the five shanty-like numbers the band performed before I departed (to be honest, the music did not appeal to me). It was like watching some Chastain-like cult. I was not amongst “my” people.

ITP Flickr Pic
Apparently I was so excited that today is iPad Day that I forgot to upload the photo I wanted to post today. Dangen!
As I walked up Euclid Av I noticed numbers painted along the curb, and then I encountered these. That’s right, our Government is planning to nickle, dime, and quarter its way out of debt. Meh. Who else thinks that these parking meter machines will cost the tax payers more money than it generates?

Once again I’m thinking that I need to get the hell out of Dodge.

I Keep Forgetting About Places I Like To Eat
I wound up not eating dinner last night, blame it on a large lunch. However while waiting for Great Big Sea to take the stage I was messing around with Yelp and realized that while I like The Porter and The Vortex, I never think to go to either any longer. Strange.

I think I may need to start reconciling these deficiencies in the very near future.

Are Our Garbage Cans Too Large?
The other day I wheeled a huge green monster to the curb for trash day. Inside said monster was one, lonely, garbage bag. I admit that I am far from “normal” when it comes to trash generation as I eat out far too much, don’t generate much trash, and recycle the hell out of anything that can be recycled.

It all got me to thinking… Why do we have such large garbage cans? When I was a wee little lad we had smaller garbage cans, those metal cans with the lids you could use as a shield for snowball fights. At some point in time Governments said “You know, our constituents are generating a lot of trash. Rather than figuring out ways to reduce this burden on the Earth and future populations, let’s give them huge trash cans that we can empty using mechanical arms.” — and then they went back to figuring out how to bilk us of our money.

Stats & GoalsDailyCurrent Mood – nervous with anticipationCurrent Music – silenceWebsite Of The Day – I love Dropbox. Dropbox is a way to store data in “the cloud” and have that data get synchronized to multiple computers. I predict that Dropbox will be one of the biggest “killer apps” on the iPad. If you sign up for a Dropbox account and can say that I referred you (my account is “InsideThePerimeter@gmail.com” please do).Mode Of Transportation To Work – my carExercise (b)Log – nothingMorning Weigh-In – didn’t checkPages Of1001 Paintings You Must See Before You DieRead – 52

April Goals
– Not to get sick for the entire month
– Not get fired from my job
– Ride my bicycle no fewer than 100 miles
– Get the Sharpened Stone, LLC moving…

2010 Goals
– Reduce my weight to 185 pounds (starting weight was 198 pounds)
– Completely read the book 1001 Paintings You Must See Before You Die
– Earn at least $150 through photography sales in order to cover the cost for the renewal of the Jalapeño Beach SmugMug account.
– Save $500 for the sole purpose of donating to charitable organizations of my choice
– Attend at least one professional photography workshop
– Enter no fewer than three photographic competitions / gallery showings
– Get the Black Sheep stats out of Excel and online
– Ride in no fewer than two 50 mile or 50K bike rides
– Complete my Taco Mac Passport requirement of 125 beers

The Unmeasurable
– Continue backing up all data, including the off-site storage
– Become a proficient programmer in PHP and CSS
– Do not create a solution for something which is not a problem

13 Responses to IT. IS. IPAD. DAY!

Your description of the audience at the Variety Playhouse last night sounds like your typical folk-rock crowd: overweight, grey-haired, hippie, median age of 50. This demographic also prevailed at the festival where I saw them play in 2002.
I must confess that I’m a big folk-rock fan. In fact, I’m probably one of the few Fairport Convention fans who is under the age of 60. I also like Morris Dancing, hurdy-gurdys, Breton fiddle, and a host of other unfashionable things. ; )

I believe the city sold the rights to parking enforcement to a 2nd party and it’s that company that is responsible for the care and maintenance of the machines. While it will cost taxpayers money, that will be in the form of fines as it’s in the best interest of the company to write as many tickets as possible to increase their profits.

Can’t wait to hear your iPad reviews. I have a jones for one since I can’t get an iPhone (damn Verizon’s hard headedness) because AT&T has no coverage in the boonies. The reviews I’ve read regard the ebook feature as inferior to a Kindle and that’s a feature I would use heavily, so you’ll have to let me know your thoughts specifically on that function when you get around to using it.

I’ll be sure to let everyone know how it goes. I read differently than most — mostly technical stuff, in short bursts — so I don’t think the reading deficiencies will hinder my reading. And there is the Kindle app for iPhone/iPad so I can still read for fun if I ever decide to do so.

Interesting to read your review of Corb Lund and Great Big Sea. As a big Corb Lund fan in Canada, I just don’t understand why he doesn’t have more fans in the U.S. His last show in Atlanta (where he headlined) apparently only had about 50 people according to http://www.the9513.com/corb-lund-plays-to-a-tiny-audience-in-atlanta/. I think the tour with GBS is an effort to get more exposure but it sounds like it may not be working!

Reading on the iPad is fine and it shows much more potential than the current Kindle. Text is legible, battery life is fine. The included Winnie the Pooh book looks great with it’s color illustrations and apps such as USA Today show that it has a huge upside in how newspapers could migrate to a portable, electronic format.

I currently subscribe to some magazines which require the Zinio reader to read them. The Zinio app is okay, but the iPhone version is unreadable, and the landscape aspect ratio of a laptop monitor isn’t the greatest thing to have in order to read portrait aspect ratio media.

I’m piping in on the garbage can thing a day late, but ah well. 🙂
We, too, had the metal cans with the metal lids – the Oscar the Grouch can, if you will. But we had, like, 5 of them! And that made taking out the trash a pain. Especially since they weren’t on wheels.

My philosophy? It’s a money making scam! You pay for trash service 1x/week but if you only have 1 bag in there, you might not put it out every week. But you’ll still pay!!

(Okay, really? Not my philosophy. I just came up with that as I was sitting here. But it sounds pretty good to me.)